Chapter 4: Chapter 4: On the Beat

Eddie and Clara sat in a local café with coffees sat between them. The grey sky overhead threatened to make the green awning above them a necessity as they languished on dark metal-wrought chairs. The faux police officer was sat with his eyes down the road, taking a sip from his drink as he took note of a large black car pulling onto the road. Similar to the ones Clara imagined followed the president around. She dismissed it and returned to her notebook, which her hairless host had bought her. No identity meant no credit cards. Word in the precinct was that the guys were searching the bayou for a body. Though given it was a populous city, that was almost a given on any day of the year.

“So run by me why Sister Act knows my name.” Clara addressed Eddie through furious scribbling. Her notes were a collection of her half-recollected life before becoming a creature of the night. Which could happily walk about during the day. Though to hear Hana’s warning, the sun was the herald of sleep to vampires. Strong, direct sunlight would make her sleepy if she didn’t find shelter.

“Could be a few things. Cavendish and ‘er are tight and he ratted. She could be a practitioner, what ya’ll call a witch down in lime-town. Or the scariest option.” Eddie suggested before taking a sip of his coffee, clearing his throat. He took a momentary glance at the cup as if the taste had offended him. “They call this a brew? Damn. Anyway, she called you by yer name ‘cause she knows you. That’s the worst option.” He complained with an easy air. The vampire was inclined to think he wasn’t taking her targeting by a gang of psychotic knights templar very seriously.

“Her face wasn’t familiar. I remember faces sometimes. Sam had a face I knew.” She countered before underlining Cavendish aggressively. She didn’t like the bellend, even before she’d heard him calling Mary the help. Plantation owner and slaver was a massive racist, who’d have thought? “I need to talk to Sam. Find out where he lives.” Clara suddenly resolved with a steely stare. Eddie raised an eyebrow over his cup with a condescending expression at her exuberance.

“Y’don’t find Sam. He shows up, cooks his ribs and gets lost in the bayou for a few days. If that crazy dude wants to talk to you, he’ll find you.” The huge man smiled reassuringly. It seemed to have the opposite effect on the mousy-haired woman, who fiddled with her glasses before putting them on her face automatically. With a growl of frustration, she removed them shortly after. “Yeah don’ wear those. The lenses screw with your eyes. Hana used to wear specs too, wanna see?” He advised before a mischievous grin overtook his face. A mixture of curiosity and schadenfreude overcame Clara as she nodded eagerly.

Eddie dipped his hand into his pocket and retrieved his phone, parsing his collection of pictures with a fond smile at a few before arriving at the image. He thrust the phone under her nose to show what appeared to be a digitized newspaper clipping. With his fingers he zoomed in on the image of an Asian-American family. It was grainy, black and white with a firmly middle-aged couple and their three daughters. Hana wore large round spectacles, similar to Ozzy’s but clear. Looking at it, Clara estimated the picture had been taken in the thirties.

“T’ain’t my story to tell but her pa was a great man. Hell of a complicated guy too.” He commented before retrieving the picture, a momentary frown crossing his features.

“What about her sisters? Are they, uh, part of the family?” Clara asked awkwardly, attempting to ape the slang she’d been hearing. Eddie’s amused smile told her instantly that she’d screwed that up. She returned to her notes with a petulant pout.

“Naw. If you mean they’re like you. Dunno why, but family’s never part of it. Right up to the oldest ones I know.” He answered with a pensive expression, looking into the eyes of the long-dead family. Clara silently wondered if she’d had siblings. Siblings which she, as a vampire, would most likely have to leave behind regardless of whether she found them again. She felt her mood dampen, eyes flicking to Eddie before inhaling deeply.

“Who’s the oldest vampire around here?” She asked in an attempt to lighten the mood. She didn’t know much about the man but knew that very few people had a healthy relationship with their regrets. And from his tattoos, he was a man who enjoyed ruminating on his many failings. A small part of Clara wondered if she wasn’t simply happier without memories.

“Well, nobody knows Sam’s real age ‘cause he never tells anyone nothin’. Could be him. But if you mean people we have a bead on that’ll be a lady by the name of Livia Juliana. Born ‘fore the US even existed. ‘Fore Europe existed, probably. Spooky bitch been hauntin’ the US for ‘bout two hundred years now.” Eddie expounded with a proud expression. Clara smiled warmly at her friend’s knowledge, noting it down in her book. “Made her own goddamn kingdom up in Michigan. Told the ol’ tribune to get the hell out or die. Scary woman t’be sure.” He continued with pursed lips, fingers at his chin as he recalled the stories surrounding the secret history of vampires. The Brit supposed it must have been something of a good feeling, knowing things other humans dismissed as fiction. If he’d said this to her living self, she was sure she’d disbelieve him.

“If there’s vampires who say they saw Noah’s Flood, I’m going to lose it.” Clara smiled as she took a sip of her coffee. Though vampires could drink and eat as normal, according to Hana, they got no sustenance from it. It was best to avoid eating too often or your average vampire would become sluggish and demand more blood for the extra work their body now had to do. “Also, if Vlad the Impaler is still alive I will dig my way to Romania right now.”

“Story goes that the oldest vampires built the first cities. Puttin’ ‘em in the ballpark for twelve thousand years.” Eddie scratched his chin, looking up at the sky. His partner in crime surmised that it was a good strategy to concentrate your food in one place. Were people going to give up six hours of leisure a day to make some other dickhead in a fancy hat rich? How did she even know how long neolithic people had? Archaeology was interesting but Clara wasn’t sure she’d had a career in it. “S’far as Dracula goes, we’re pretty sure he’s dead. Know who ain’t though? Radu the Handsome.” The large man said through a huge grin, suppressing a laugh. The vampire’s blank expression made him reconsider before he leaned forward with a mischievous glint in his eye. “Radu’s Vlad’s brother.”

“You’re having a laugh.” The woman giggled, hand over her mouth to disguise the fangs she felt had to be there by now. Eddie denied it with scout’s honour and, to be frank, nobody could dispute so cast iron a pledge. Clara was perfectly content to think that somewhere, out in the world, Dracula’s literal brother was seething in fraternal jealousy that his sibling was remembered as the holotype of vampires everywhere.

“I ‘ppreciate it. What y’did there. Mary says I get in my own head too much.” The muscular man extended his thanks in the form of footing the bill for the pair of them, looking about swiftly before pocketing his phone and keys. He rolled his shoulders then got to his feet with a sniff. “I’ve gotta get back to the precinct. See if the boys haven’t turned up your phone yet. Here’s money for a cab. Go straight home y’hear?” Eddie instructed in a surprisingly firm voice as he handed her a few bills. Clara took them with a confused expression before cracking an uncomfortable smile.

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“Whatever you say, dad.” She replied sarcastically. Eddie humoured her with a smirk before bidding her goodbye and walking toward the street his car was parked. For a man ostensibly not with the police, he’d managed to wrangle a lot of favours from them. Including a patrol car. Having your own access to police radio was probably useful in tracking rogue vampires, Clara reasoned as she entered the café proper to ask for her ride. A young lady in glasses who tended the register was all too happy to comply. Perhaps she’d been too happy. Clara shook her head. She was being paranoid or British or both. A happy retail worker wasn’t a sign of conspiracy.

As she left the bar with assurances her ride was coming, the vampire looked about with some concern. The secret service was still there, parked at the end of the street like they weren’t the only tank for miles around. As he turned away from government surveillance, something caught her eye. Straight ahead of her, down the T-junction’s adjoining road, stood a woman. Not unusual for a city. What was unusual was that she didn’t seem to have eyes. The sockets weren’t empty, they simply weren’t there. Dark pits with glowing red sparks for pupils. She wore a fine linen shirt, the kind pirates used to wear. She had red pantaloons at least three centuries out of style and knee-high sailor’s boots. In each hand, she hefted a hatchet like a mad lumberjack. With wide eyes and deer-like paralysis, Clara’s hand lifted to begin sketching what she saw. Her strange eyes, long black tresses, unnatural pallor, archaic outfit right down to the devious smirk she wore.

The two stood opposite each other, a thin river of tarmac between them. Those who walked near her did not acknowledge the presence of the pirate. A few managed to walk straight through her. Clara continued scribbling, unsure how long this hallucination would last. Even as a vampire, she was sure that seeing things wasn’t a good sign. It would be just her luck if she were an unmedicated schizophrenic. The end result of her drawing was a fairly good likeness, by her reckoning. She held it up to her eyeline, fear gripping her all the more tightly as the woman faded into nothingness like a mere mirage.

An unfamiliar voice interjected into her reverie. Looking down she saw a cab driver leaning out of his car with a concerned look. She dismissed his concerns, giving the address written into the back of her notebook. She had to get to Hana. She’d know what the hell had just happened. She hoped that every new vampire got to see the spooky empty-eye lady on their third day. She’d take a warm or stiff drink at this point, as her heart pounded in her ears. Curiously, it wasn’t the same pounding she got when staring at Mary. This was more urgent, insistent and came with a tightening of her throat and chest. The cabbie asked several times whether he should take her to the police or a hospital, to which she shook her head. First date jitters. Deception came so easily. She was surprised with herself. Another potential trait to add to the list. A liar.  

She arrived at the house with the cabbie earnestly wishing her luck as she passed him the entirety of her money. Clara nodded with a tight smile before beginning her way up to the house where Hana slept. The poor woman worked as a family doctor by day, vampire doctor by night. The therapist elements had arrived through decades of experience. She wondered whether antipsychotics were in her future. Did antipsychotics even work on vampires?

Clara rushed up the stairs to the master bedroom, flinging the door open with urgency. Too much urgency. She was met with the bare back of Mary, sitting atop the prone form of Hana. The fresh vampire practically somersaulted out of the room with a shouted apology while the lovers shouted a mixture of obscenities and instructions in equal measure. Eventually, she reached up to close the door with her back to the pair. Through the white-painted wood, she asked whether it was normal to be seeing strange women others didn’t. There was a long silence after that.

Tearing the drawing from her notepad, she slipped it under the door for the pair. Strangely, she didn’t want to disturb them. There was a sigh and some rustling as Mary brought the drawing to her lover, who seemed to be taking her new role as art critic very seriously. There was the sound of a drawer opening, an extended pause then the drawing found its way back out of the room.

“Leave it on the kitchen table. I’ll send it to one of my friends. She knows about this kind of thing.” Hana shouted. Clara nodded before realising, shouting her ascent through the door. “Don’t worry. Vampires don’t typically get mental illnesses associated with unusual brain chemistry. I can’t speak to anything else though. So, for the love of God, go find something relaxing to do!”

Rather than argue the point, Clara acknowledged the command before meekly scuttling down the stairs. She didn’t demand the world turn for her but at some point, after the inquisition showed up so unexpectedly, her murder seemed to become a lesser priority. Cavendish had been making an irate spectacle of himself if Eddie was to be believed. A fact that she’d laughed about only an hour earlier. Now she had to rely on the US’s finest. In a city. In a country where murder was a national pastime. She could have screamed as she made her way to the den, turning on the telly with a prayer that the sounds from the pair above her didn’t communicate through the floor. As she flicked through channels, she pondered why it bothered her so much. She was a good person, right? Not prejudiced. In fact, given how many women she’d swooned for, it was unlikely that was the problem. Was it swooning or just the vampire version of being hungry?

She felt tears prick her eyes. Unexpectedly, they traced down her cheeks silently. She wanted to sob, to wail and bawl. But the emotion wouldn’t come. All that remained was an empty expanse in her chest. Everything was swallowed by that void. A void was probably the best way to describe it. She didn’t have the warm comfort of memories. She didn’t have the arms of a lover nor the encouraging word of a parent. She only had herself. No, not even that. When Clara looked within herself to find some purchase on her past, she only saw the void. How, then, could she say with any certainty that she was good? Chills gripped her with a dawning horror. What if she’d been murdered for a good reason? What if she herself was a murderer?

Stamping on her surfacing angst, she gruffly wiped her tears and told herself to get a grip. Allowing herself to neurotically worry over hypotheticals would only make her new life even harder. How many other people got a completely blank slate? Even if she discovered that she was an atrocious person, so what? She could take the spine and leave the rest. If she’d lost all she was, it made sense to begin the work again. She’d be the best damn vampire since Ol’ Hairy Palms himself. Hopefully less creepy towards women. She remembered Dracula hunting one particular woman across the centuries. Perhaps that was just the film. Either way, she hoped she wouldn’t be like that. Or date a highschooler as a century-old woman. She barely looked thirty and the idea of that turned her stomach slightly.

Her internal pep talk was disturbed when the news came on. She noticed that the day was getting on and she’d done nothing but scribble in her notepad. It was time for wild speculation! She lowered the volume on the usual carnival of wars, disease and pearl clutching to focus on her suppositions. Studious, rational, observant and cynical as all hell. What was this skill set? Sounded like the average climatologist, if she was honest with herself. She stared at the clouds, as if they might give her some insight. As the weather came up, she stared at that too. Nope, no familiarity with that. She struck that from the list, moving on to historian. That was a hard one. She could be an expert in obscure Elizabethan artifacts and never know. A question mark for that one. She continued down the list for some time before the local news drew her attention. She dropped the pad with a start, scrambling for the remote and turning up that sweet, manufactured consent. What awaited her wasn’t the latest on a crime wave. A personal crime wave stared at her. Her own face. It sat next to a serious blonde newscaster who read the report.

“The woman is believed to be of UK origin. If anyone has information as to her whereabouts, please contact the police immediately.” She relayed before the picture took up the whole screen. Clara looked at her own face with growing consternation. She didn’t look like a serial killer. Well, perhaps to grandmas. Dressed in leather, bracers, distressed jeans and biker boots, she looked like your average fan of heavy metal. Numbly, Clara retrieved her notepad and wrote that down. She should definitely try some. Her mind spun with realisations and theories. No tattoos, which probably meant that her memory was less reliable than she’d first thought.

Why would they publish this? If they’d found her phone, they’d have found her grave. Hana must have given Eddie the skin scraps under her nails. Were they hoping to honeytrap her killers? Her stomach dropped as she realised. Her picture was now known to every citizen of New Orleans. She’d been wandering the city for two days. Her killers, if they had police contacts, would soon know that she wasn’t dead.

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